You’d have to live under a rock to miss the push underway to help America’s military veterans find jobs.
In an already tight job market and with thousands of veterans returning, one organization has taken a different approach to connecting veterans with jobs by targeting potential employers.
Hire America’s Heroes, a nonprofit organization formed in the Seattle area in 2007, helps veterans find jobs by focusing efforts on educating corporate employers about the advantage of hiring prior military.
“Corporations must provide a level playing field,” said HAH Executive Director Marjorie James. “And when you can help identify candidates for these opportunities, then you can get former military members placed where their skills are truly recognized and compensated.”
A Hire America’s Heroes symposium earlier this year at Naval Station Everett brought together leaders from all branches of the military, politicians and representatives of the corporate world, including Stephanie Cootsona, the manager of baggage performance at Alaska Airlines and a 1st Sgt. in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
According to Cootsona, corporate recruiters and human resources or hiring personnel need to be able to translate military language into civilian language, especially when it comes to someone with a military resume.
“They can certainly be put off,” said Cootsona. “It’s like looking at something that’s almost in another language and if it’s too difficult to understand, sometimes it’s discarded.”
But there are simple things corporate recruiters can do to understand a military resume.
“Definitely take a look at the title of a job and just Google it,” Cootsona said. “That can give an employer a framework to use in considering their experience.”
A resume that shows a progression in job titles, such as crew member to crew chief, for example, shows a progression in responsibility, which translates into positive job growth. Someone who has been in the military a while has typically reenlisted, which means they were able to adapt to military life, a good indicator that person can adapt to different work environments and situations, Cootsona said.
“If someone is enlisted, versus an officer, they likely don’t have a college degree,” she said. “If they do, they probably fought pretty hard to get it.
“It may take a military individual longer to get a degree due to the rigor of their duties and available time for school,” Cootsona continued. “The fact they completed it is a good sign, because it means they used their off-duty time wisely.”
One of Hire America’s Heroes corporate sponsors is State Farm. According to J.D. Trueblood, the director of agency recruiting for State Farm, the company wanted to be able to take advantage of the pool of potential employees coming home after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and came up with a sort of playbook for hiring former military members.
“When you think about the training the military has, it just all aligns,” said Trueblood. “They have to be the best at the worst of times and so do we. After some catastrophic event, who better than someone with a military background? It’s a tremendous benefit to our policy holders.”
Likewise, veterans can make use of their connections in the civilian world to help them transition into a new job. Civilian acquaintances who have written their own resumes can look over that of a former military member. Find ways to translate military terms and jargon into terms and phrases more easily understood by civilians.
Civilian friends can also help when it comes to another important part of the job-hunting process: the interview.
“In the military, it’s all about the team,” said Trueblood. “In corporate America we love to say we’re about the team, but I want to know what you did on that team. Military men and women struggle with that, because they talk team, team, team.”
“The biggest obstacle is to bring out the true personality of the person being interviewed,” agreed Cootsona. “For a military member, the closest thing they may have had to an interview is a military board, which is very formal, serious and often scary.
“If you can put the person at ease, get them to use “I” statements versus “we” statements and help them become comfortable answering in longer sentences, you’ll get to know them a bit better,” Cootsona continued.
“When interviewing a military person, being able to pull out the information you need to be able to properly evaluate what they bring to the table is key,” said Trueblood, who added that a reverse career fair held as part of the symposium on May 17 was a great eye-opener for employers.
“I was talking to an individual on the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) who said ‘I’m a cook,’” Trueblood described. “But this guy was responsible for 14,000 meals a day. You start to see the logistics behind that — 5,000 people on the carrier and they’re going out to sea for six months — the inventory, the planning, all the things that go into that, oh my gosh, it’s so much more than a cook.”
According to James, job seekers can go to www.hireamericasheroes.org and post their resume, which will be seen by HAH sponsoring companies. There are also links to sponsors’ employment programs.
There will also be a Career Day job fair at Safeco Field Sept. 7, all part of HAH’s efforts to help returning veterans and their families make a successful transition to the civilian work world.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” said James. “But it’s a privilege and honor to do it.”
Career Day at Safeco Field
Starts 8 a.m., Friday, Sept. 7
Join Hire America’s Heroes for this job-seeking opportunity. There will be 100 exhibitors, including representatives from aerospace, financial, insurance, IT, manufacturing, logistics, retail and other industries.
Register early at www.HireAmericasHeroes.org.
Career Day activities will be followed by the Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland Athletics game, with discounts for Career Day participants.
“When interviewing a military person, being able to pull out the information you need to be able to properly evaluate what they bring to the table is key,” said Trueblood, who added that a reverse career fair held as part of the
